Cryptotourism With Bigfoot And Nessie
As heard in the Weird Darkness episode, “The Cage”: https://weirddarkness.com/thecage/
It is said that cryptids live in remote lakes, hide in the depths of forests, and even wander snowy peaks. Still, science has not yet managed to uncover definitive proof of these fantastic creatures, which may or may not exist but have certainly instilled fear and wonder in humans for thousands of years. West Africans have the swamp creature Ninki Nanka; Japan has a giant octopus called the Akkorokamui, and Ireland has the carnivorous dog-otter hybrid known as Dobhar-chú. However, the ones that seem to attract the most attention from travelers are the Loch Ness Monster of Scotland, the Yeti in the Himalayas, the Yowie from Australia, and Bigfoot (a Chewbacca-type man-ape) who reportedly generates more than $140 million a year for the American economy, according to the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
These fantastic beasts have inspired festivals, films, podcasts, and a niche field of study called cryptozoology. They are the focus of boat cruises and wilderness outings and have their names given to bars, hotels, eateries, and even airlines. Just before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, one Scottish company spent nearly £2 million developing a new visitor center closely linked to the legendary Loch Ness Monster. This is how cryptotourism offers travelers an innovative angle on destinations often overlooked by mainstream tourism outlets.
The world’s most famous cryptid might well be “Nessie,” the enormous marine creature said to inhabit the 800-foot depth of Loch Ness. The Loch Ness Monster has peddled controversy for 1,400 years since its first reported appearance. The mythical beast was first recorded by Irish missionary St. Columba in 565 A.D. It was said that this very animal hurt a woman wading in the stream, and when it crawled up out of the loch, Columba ordered it away. Thus, Nessie swam back into the lake, leaving behind a sparkling image of wrongdoing that fueled the legend. Nessie was seen now and again over the next few centuries, each time adding to the lore.
In 1934, this particular urban legend reached its peak when an English physician captured a photograph of what he claimed was Nessie, its long neck and bulbous head jutting out from the loch. The photograph set in motion events that transformed Loch Ness from an obscure place to one of Europe’s most famous lakes. Tour guides soon began advertising “monster tours,” and according to Gary Campbell, who maintains the official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Record website, there have been 1,143 sightings in the past 26 years. Campbell states, “Loch Ness is worth $47 million annually to its tourism industry.”
Not even the pandemic could lessen Loch Ness’s appeal. “A full 149,000 visitors made lake tours between Jacobite and Loch Ness in 2022 before September,” says Freda Newton, managing director of the company. “Everybody wants to see Nessie. We see it every day in the expressions on visitors’ faces,” she says. “There is real excitement when people board our boats and realize that finally, maybe, they’ll be able to see our most elusive friend.”
Mr. Gordon Menzies, who runs Castle Cruises Loch Ness, believes that over 70 percent of his visitors come in search of Nessie. He has spent a lifetime contemplating this legend. “I think it is most unlikely that a prehistoric creature still survives in here,” Menzies says. “However, with the dark peaty loch waters as they are, there’s no reason to think something which we haven’t yet identified might not exist there.”
Although Nessie is now a bit stereotyped, the Yowie – Australia’s best-known cryptid – is woven deep into the lore of one of the world’s oldest communities, the Australian Aboriginal people. After the British colonized the country in the late 1700s, the Aboriginal people gave them an eerie warning. The verdant forests they took over concealed these Sasquatch-sized beings: 10 feet tall, 800 pounds, and walking on two legs. “Yowies are respected but also avoided by Aboriginal people because they can be dangerous,” says Tony Healy, coauthor of several books on Australian cryptids. “The [Aboriginal] elders I spoke to see Yowies as something like a guardian spirit of the landscape.”
Perhaps the first rumored Yowie sighting occurred in 1830 when a European man fired his musket at one of these giant beasts near the southern Australian Kangaroo Island coast. Australian cryptozoologist Gary Opit, who has researched the Yowie for 50 years, says there have been hundreds of supposed encounters since then. These mainly occurred along the Great Divide, a 2,300-mile-long series of mountain ranges and highlands running from Victoria through New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland.
An environmental scientist, Opit leads Yowie tours into this wilderness. About 90 percent of participants are foreign tourists eager to visit the out-of-the-way places where sightings like those at Mount Warning in northern NSW and Springbrook Mountain just nearby occur. Despite thousands of years of discussion, it is only in the past decade that interest in the Yowie has grown significantly.
That is 5,000 miles from California, in Kathmandu, Nepal. The first cryptotourists there flocked to see Yetis in reserve areas throughout Nepal, where people have always said archaic creatures existed since the 1950s. The legendary Yeti, up to six feet tall and similar in appearance to Bigfoot and the Yowie, supposedly wanders the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. Apart from appearing in stories widely told throughout Nepal, Bhutan, India, and Tibet, the Yeti has a long history.
“All 6,000 years of it,” says Ram Kumar Panday, a publisher of multiple books on the Yeti. In modern times, the Yeti was only a regional folklore until British explorer Eric Shipton claimed to have photographed a hominoid-like 13-inch-long footprint in the snow of Nepal’s Menlung Glacier west of Mount Everest, Panday explains. The photo appeared in newspapers and on television screens around the globe, sending hordes of explorers into the Himalayas on the trail of cryptids. As foreign visitors overwhelmed the country, the Nepal government introduced Yeti-hunting regulations: all those engaged in it must take only pictures and not harm any creatures encountered.
Over the ensuing decades, the Yeti became a powerful brand for Nepal’s tourism industry. The foot of this animal is the emblem of the flag carrier Yeti Airlines, while hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, and travel companies all make money from its name. Early in 2019, the Nepal government made the Yeti the highlight of its tourism campaign, planting dozens of Yeti statues at major attractions.
“When people hear about ‘Yetis’ in America or Europe, they think: ‘That’s interesting. That will be challenging.’ Now it is a part of their memories. Travelers hoping to see one of these beasts should visit Mahalangur Himal. This rugged Himalayan area, boasting several of the world’s highest peaks such as Mount Everest, is key habitat for the Yeti and the site where most sightings occur,” according to Panday.
Visitors to this region will hear numerous Yeti stories from the locals. An old folktale in a Himalayan monastery relates how the Yeti was born to a Tibetan mother and a Mahalangur giant ape, Panday says. Other Nepalese find the whole thing quite suspect. Sushil Nepal, a veteran tour guide from Kathmandu, says that when he was small, he regarded Yetis as hoaxes. Now, if his customers ask about these creatures, he explains that they are widely believed in Nepal to be myths. Sushil Nepal admits that he is not a fan of cryptotourism, which detracts from the country’s mountainous architecture and ancient traditions.
“The Yeti is not going to help Nepal’s tourism industry,” he states. “We have numerous intangible cultural heritages as well as many sights that can actually be seen. We should highlight the rich diversity of Nepal’s natural beauties and how feasible it is for outside investments.”
Many researchers are equally skeptical. In 2017, DNA analysis of teeth, hair, and wool said to be those of the Yeti, published by Proceedings of the Royal Society B, revealed that this mythical creature might well have been based on real animals—the brown and black bears of the Himalayas. Experts have also tried to explain Australian cryptids and the Loch Ness Monster using science, yet these legends persist. “People have always been interested in those aspects of nature that go beyond our understanding,” Opit said. “And I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon.”
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